All Is Silent, Hope Ignites
by nitilia
Summary: After the Britannian Empire colonized Area 11, Charles zi Britannia was killed and the royal family was overthrown. Many years later, two boys appear in a series of videos, hinting terrorist attacks and challenging the police to stop them. They call themselves Zero and Lancelot. / Based on Zangkyou no Terror.
1. Falling

**Hello.**

 **The plot of this story is roughly based on the anime _Zangkyou no Terror,_ but you don't need to have watched it to understand it. But it's a brilliant anime, so you should watch it for that.**

 **Hope you like it!**

* * *

Euphemia likes the new boy in class. He seems guarded but his smile is warm, and she believes you can tell everything you need to know about a person with just their smile. Suzaku Kururugi is a genuine person, even if he seems a little bit sad.

She sits in the seat behind him in class and tries not to stare too openly, but all her thoughts keep coming back to him. He's an Eleven, for one. The racial slurs have already begun, about two weeks after he transferred. What's fascinating is that he doesn't take it to heart – either that, or he is just so used to it by now. Euphemia has tried fending people off. She sticks herself firmly to his side whenever she can, and people _like_ her, so her appearance is generally enough to shut them up.

She watches him now, how his eyes are glued on the teacher, frantically taking notes – practically the only student doing so.

The other reason Suzaku's become such a big deal is Lelouch Lamperouge.

Lelouch hasn't been with them for long either – two months at the most. He is already one of the most popular kids, which is a miracle, because as polite as he seems his smile is so fake.

Euphemia doesn't really like him. Lelouch is a whole different level of uncaring. They have a couple of classes together – calculus and chemistry lab, and she's only ever seen him dozing, texting under the table, or, in the case of lab, exploding things and pocketing chemicals that Euphemia wants to call him out on but doesn't want to seem like a snitch.

His only friend is Rivalz, who has a knack for dealing with people who don't care about him, and who, she has heard, takes him gambling on occassion for extra pocket money. She doesn't know _why_ he's popular – except that he is sort of pretty. She'll give him that.

Even if his shady surgical eye patch makes him look...well, shady.

What took everyone by surprise was that Lelouch and Suzaku seem, by all accounts, to be friends.

Proof of that is here, right now, in the fact that Suzaku's phone in his desk keeps lighting up with text messages. One after the other in rapid succession. Euphemia doesn't mean to spy, but it is hard to miss that the sender ID is Lelouch.

Suzaku ignores the messages with profound determination. When his phone blinks faster, he pushes it to the back of his desk so that he doesn't have to see it anymore. He waits it out till the end of class, never pausing in his note taking. When class is over, he throws his books into his bag and stands to leave, pocketing his phone but not answering it.

"Hey, Suzaku!" she calls, before he could leave. "Do you have plans after school?"

He looks surprised for a moment, but then he smiles. "Yes, sorry," he says. "I have to meet someone."

Lelouch, no doubt. "Don't be," she says, waving him away. "What about tomorrow?"

He nods hesitantly. "I guess so."

"Wonderful! We'll go out somewhere then?"

Their conversation doesn't go unheard, something that both of them are terribly aware of. The murmurs have started, dark looks turning towards Suzaku.

"Alright," he says. It isn't rare for them to go out together, but it is strange for her to ask in front of the whole class. She internally apologizes for the awkwardness of the situation, but she really believes that being forward about befriending an Eleven is the only way to make people realize that he isn't worth any less than themselves.

When Suzaku leaves the room, her friends instantly huddle around her, hesitant to broach the topic but making loud hints that they want it explained. Euphemia shrugs.

"You're too innocent," one of the girls says. It's the kind of thing her sister says, day after day.

* * *

It is absurdly easy to break into the nuclear fuel facility. All he has to do is lift his helmet at the right time, ask if he could please enter, and before he knows it he's in and out, clutching the container that's just _almost_ too big for him to carry, and running towards the gate where Suzaku is waiting for him. Suzaku is impatient, drumming his fingers on the handle bars of his bike. Running and carrying stuff is more his job – Lelouch would much rather be the one at the bike. But Suzaku never would have made it inside the facility. Actually he could have, but it would have been a great deal more...messy.

Suzaku takes the container from him and puts in on the bike, pulling out a can of red spray paint from his pocket. Lelouch looks at it incredulously.

"Did you have to wait until I was out to do this?"

"It signifies a _job well done,_ Lelouch," Suzaku shoots back. He sprays the paint onto the wall near the gate, in the shape of the Geass sigil that occassionally glows in Lelouch's left eye. "It would have been awkward if I sprayed it and then you ended up dead."

Lelouch scoffs. "As if I'd fail." He jumps onto the bike behind Suzaku and the machine whirs to life. They speed away from the scene of the crime well before anyone realizes that something's gone wrong.

Suzaku's phone rings when they are halfway home. He reaches into his pocket (letting go of one handle, making the bike swerve dangerously) and hands the phone to Lelouch without looking. Lelouch squints at the caller ID.

"It's Euphemia," he says, somewhat annoyed.

"I can't hear you!" Suzaku shouts over the wind.

"It's Euphemia!" he shouts back.

Suzaku doesn't respond. He knows Lelouch won't pick the call up, and he knows he's going to get a lecture about this later. As well he _should_ know, Lelouch thinks.

He starts the moment they get back home, right when Suzaku jumps onto the ground and takes his helmet off, shaking his hair out. "I told you not to get too involved with anyone," Lelouch says, glaring at him.

Suzaku throws his arms up. "What can I say? She's persistent."

"You know what'll happen if we drag her into this. If you have to be rude to her, be rude to her, damn it. Or you'll just end up getting her killed."

Suzaku bites his lip, hefting the stolen container to take indoors.

They don't talk much at home. Actually neither of them talks much in general. Lelouch spends his time tinkering away with wires and explosives, while Suzaku lies sprawled across the couch, sometimes reading, often going out to buy groceries and more questionable materials. It's also his job to watch the news – which is actually important and not just something he does to pass the time.

Late at night, Lelouch can see him texting someone from the corner of his eye, and he flings his screw driver at him. Then he has to pause working until Suzaku finishes grumbling and feels nice enough to hand it back. Suzaku also slams a plate of sandwiches down in his desk, which Lelouch deems unimportant.

They go to bed around midnight, Suzaku on the top bunk and Lelouch on the lower one. Lelouch tosses and turns but can't sleep, his hands twitching with the temptation to return to making his bombs.

* * *

 _The stench of the corpses was overwhelming. There was no place to hide from them, the entire city was trashed. Corpses leaked onto the streets and lay in pieces along the sidewalk._

 _Suzaku was behind him, not even breathing. They were trying to step around the bodies but there was no where to walk, no place to step that wasn't covered in blood and gore -_

" _Nunnally!" he kept shrieking, the only sound in the gloom. "Nunnally, Nunnally!"_

 _They each held a gun, two large for their bony ten year old hands. Lelouch's fingers shook over the trigger, but there was no one to fight. The enemy lines seemed to have retreated, leaving the entire city dead in it's wake."Nunnally!"_

 _And then he saw her, in the middle of the street, broken wheelchair and mangled body, her eyes wide open and screaming -_

* * *

Suzaku wakes up to a loud thud. He's a light sleeper, and being Lelouch's roommate doesn't make sleeping any easier. He peers over the bed frame, and sure enough, Lelouch is on the ground, sitting up and blinking disorientedly. He'd fallen out of bed again.

"Nightmare?" Suzaku asks, with none of the grogginess of sleep. He isn't a stranger to nightmares either. It's the sort of thing that kids like him and Lelouch are used to by now.

"Yeah. I'm fine," Lelouch says, pushing himself to a standing position. He makes to leave the room. Suzaku knows that he'll spend the rest of the...night? Morning? A quick look at the clock tells him that it's four AM, so he'll spend the rest of the morning working with his explosives.

He doesn't sleep after that, either. He lies awake and stares at the ceiling, trying not to think. That's always been something that he's good at.

At 6:30 AM he climbs down the ladder, to take a bath, cook something, maybe if he's lucky get Lelouch to eat something as well. When he crosses Lelouch in the living room he looks up from his work.

"I think it's time," Lelouch says. He never wears his eye patch at home, he says it itches something terrible. "I think we're ready."

* * *

The rebels base is not particularly impressive, but the pride that they all have in owning their own base makes up for it. It was Ohgi who had found the spot, hidden near the outskirts of the Shinjuku ghetto, and they'd happily made it their impromptu home for the past three months.

"So you see," Tamaki is saying to Ohgi, who looks just about as fed up as Ohgi can look. "I need more money."

Kallen points and accusing finger at him. "Don't give it to him! He used his allowance entirely on liquor!"

"You traitor! What about all the times I paid for your meals?"

"All the times _you_ paid? Don't make me laugh!"

Ohgi takes their bantering as the opportune moment to sneak away from the conversation. Kallen lets him.

Their group is dying. Their motivation has disappeared long ago, and they are now a rebel group in name only, their recent accomplishments nonexistent and their old ones gathering dust. Soon they will be forgotten, dubbed another 'group of kids with big ideas and nothing else', and Kallen would do anything to stop that from happening.

"Hey, Ohgi!" Sugiyama calls. He's sitting in the corner of the shelter that passes for a room, leaning against a wall with a laptop in his lap. Their group has one laptop in total, and connecting to the internet is pure hell. Most of them don't use it because they're all bad tempered people who can't be trusted not to punch the screen. "I think I found something interesting."

The group instantly huddles around him – anything on the internet that has already loaded is very cool. For having loaded, if not for anything else.

Sugiyama is looking at a video on a popular social media site, titled _Zero Requiem, Part I._ There are two male figures wearing black masks, hiding their identities.

"Good day," one of them says. "I am Zero."

"And I'm Lancelot," the other boy pipes up. "We're here to tell you something important."

'Zero' holds up four fingers. "At four PM tomorrow, Tokyo will fall into darkness."

"And then the darkness will light up with a boom!" Lancelot mimes an explosion with his hands.

"We'll see you then," Zero says. He reaches out to turn the camera off, and then the video goes blank.

There is a moment of silence. "Well," Kallen says at last. "That was pretty lame."

"The masks were cool," Tamaki says as an afterthought. "Maybe we should get masks?"

* * *

Suzaku seems distracted in class today. He looks like something's bothering him, and Euphemia has even tried asking what it was, but he had smiled tightly and said that he was just fine in the way that people tell you to please leave them alone. She bites the end of her pencil, frowning to herself. Maybe she could cheer him up after school. She could take him to her brother's art museum. Art could cheer anyone up, especially Clovis' art.

"Hey, Suzaku," she starts, once the teacher leaves at the end of the day. "Do you - "

"Sorry, Euphy," he cuts her off, looking a bit harried. "There's somewhere I have to be."

"But – but you promised!" It sounds so childish, even to herself.

Suzaku looks a bit guilty. "I'm really sorry. I'll make it up to you next time."

 _'Oh my god, did he just blow her off?'_ The mutters start. _'Like she isn't doing him a favour?'_

Suzaku doesn't even look at his haters. He seems in a real hurry. Hopefully he hasn't gotten into trouble of some sort.

* * *

"These plushies look hideous," Lelouch says, scowling. He and Suzaku are standing in an abandoned aisle of the shopping center, which, as required for their plan, sells horrible looking plushies.

"I think they're kind of cute, actually," Suzaku says. They are shaped like mini television sets, with too wide eyes and gaping mouths. They look more like victims of electrocution than huggable friends. Lelouch turns one over, examining it. He's checking to see which of the plushies have a small mark near the heads, which he'd placed himself before packaging and selling to show which of the plushies had explosives in them. The ones that do he hands to Suzaku. The ones that don't, he places back on the shelves with some excuse or the other.

"This one is too ugly," he'll say for one.

"This one is _way_ too ugly," for the next.

"This one is _way way waaay_ to ugly."

"You're a natural," Suzaku says under his breath. "I could swear you aren't pretending."

"That's becaause I'm _not,_ you idiot. They're all ugly! Why do you always like the weird stuff that no one else does?"

"I ask myself that every day when I see you."

Lelouch can't decide if he wants to take that as an insult or a compliment. He tilts his head, considering. A second later, the lights go out and the building is enveloped in pitch darkness.

He looks at his watch, the fluorescent numbers glowing ominously in the dark. It's 4PM. Right on time.

The people around him are unusually loud, complaining about the store and the government and God and anyone else they can think of to blame. Suzaku has disappeared already with an arm full of plushies. He needs to get them to the sprinkler system.

When the emergency power doesn't turn on, people start to panic. Employees are lining up at the aisles, directing the customers towards the emergency exit. "Everyone please remain calm, everything is under control," is what they're saying. It makes Lelouch want to laugh, but he lines up behind the customers anyway. His eyepatch is itching like crazy.

It takes quite a while for them all to get out of the building. As soon as he's out he steps away from the crowd and pulls out his phone. Suzaku is late. It should have taken him only a minute to make it to the sprinkler system and back. He should have caught up with Lelouch by now.

 _Where are you?_ He texts, trying not to panic. He fingers the spray can in his side bag. He can't spray anything until he knows Suzaku is safe.

It takes Suzaku a full minute to respond. _Sorry, I've been delayed._

What? He texts back, worried, but Suzaku doesn't reply. Did he get caught? Did he get into a fight? What was wrong?

* * *

Euphemia recognizes him instantly.

She actually recognizes Lelouch first. His eye patch makes him conspicuous – he is easy to pick out in a crowd. And wherever Lelouch is, Suzaku is never far behind. They seem to be looking at plushies together.

It hurts a bit. Suzaku had _promised_ that they'd go out together, and now here he is, looking at plushies with his friend, when he'd made the situation seem like an emergency. She sort of wants to go over and scold him (good naturedly) about it.

Before she can make it to their aisle, the power goes out, and there's a collective chorus of _noooo_ and _daaaamn_ around her.

In the darkness she can't be sure of anything, but she thinks someone runs past her, deeper into the building. When her eyes start to adjust to the dark, Lelouch is alone.

Suzaku has surely made a run for it. The staircase behind her is labelled _under maintenance._ Her heart beats loudly – she is more than suspicious – but she runs in the direction that she thinks he's gone – down the stairs.

Down one storey. Down the next. Down one more and she finds him, kneeling next to the wall, arranging something a she can't see in the dark.

"Suzaku?" she calls, hesitant.

For a moment he is absolutely silent. He doesn't look at her, doesn't move. He just stays there, very much aware of her presence but making no move to acknowledge it. Finally he stands, turning towards her with what she hopes is a smile. "You shouldn't be here," he says gently.

"Neither should you," Euphy points out. "What – what are you doing?"

Suzaku hands her a plushie. "Taking care of this guy," he says. "Whatever you do, don't let go of him." He sounds deathly serious. "Stay here and I'll be right back."

"Suzaku, wait!" But he's gone in a second, taking the stairs five at a time. He's always been freakishly fast.

 _Don't let go of him._ It was a creepy thing to say given the situation – no power and with him doing suspicious things in the dark. She's actually scared to let go. What if she doesn't know Suzaku after all? What if he is in more trouble than she'd thought?

She starts up the stairs, stops, starts back down, stops. Then she pulls at her hair. Cornelia would have known what to do in such a situation.

Her phone rings. The number on the screen is blocked.

"Hello?"

" _Euphemia. This is Zero. I need you to tell me if you still want to live."_

* * *

Lelouch looks like he just about wants to kill someone. Preferably Suzaku. "This is why," he hisses, as he copies Euphemia's number onto his phone. "This is why I told you, every day of my life, _not to get too involved - "_

"I'm not a _complete_ idiot," Suzaku argues. "I had the sense to leave the plushie with her. You can get rid of her in a second if you want."

Lelouch gives him a look of pure venom. They both know that they don't want any fatalities on this job. He holds his phone to his ear, still giving Suzaku a death glare. "Euphemia. This is Zero. I need you to tell me if you still want to live."

There is a horrible silence at the other end of the line. _"...Lelouch Lamperouge, is that you?"_

* * *

The voice doesn't answer her question, but it does pause uncomfortably. That tells Euphemia more than she needs to know. "If you want to live," Lelouch – she is sure of this now - continues, "you need to follow my instructions carefully. Otherwise you will die in the next few minutes."

"What are you up to, Lelouch?" She eyes the plushie, fear starting to rush in. What has she gotten herself into?

"Are you willing to cooperate?"

"...yes."

"Good. First, place the plushie next to the others that you see there."

She puts it down gently, alongside the line of plushies Suzaku had arranged earlier. They look even creepier in the darkness.

"You're on the fourth floor now," Lelouch continues. "I want you to come down to the first."

She goes down three flights of stairs, breathing hard into the receiver. "I'm here."

"Open the window. Do you see Suzaku?"

He's standing there, near the base of the building, smiling at her encouragingly. It frightens her that he can smile in a situation like this. The window is large enough for her to easily jump through, something that Lelouch appears to be counting on.

"There is going to be a huge explosion on the floors above you. In the midst of the distraction, jump out the window. I can promise that Suzaku will catch you."

Her heart is racing. This is terrifying. She doesn't know if she can trust either of them anymore - they've been hiding behind too many lies. But Suzaku holds out his hands, urging her to jump, and his smile is still so _genuine_ that she wants to trust him...

She hears the explosion above her, and she closes her eyes and jumps. She doesn't want to look, she's sure she's jumping to her death, but some part of her still wants to believe.

A warm body stops her fall, and they both tumble onto the ground. Fire roars somewhere above them.

* * *

Their secret base is even more miserable without any power. Tamaki is whining in a corner. Kallen is playing cards against Inoue. It is Ohgi who realizes the importance of the situation first.

"4PM," he says slowly, somewhat doubtful and somewhat in awe.

"Ohgi?"

"Tokyo will be enveloped in darkness. At 4PM. That's what the guys on the video said."

* * *

"You two are in so much trouble," Euphemia says, glaring at them. _This_ is why Lelouch has always hated her. She believes, for some reason, that she has a say in things. He reaches for his eyepatch, intending to pull it out of the way. One word from him and she'd leave them alone forever.

"No, wait!" Suzaku says, grabbing onto his hand. For about the thirteenth time today Lelouch wants to strangle him.

"What, you want to _talk this over?"_

"I'm not _talking over_ anything!" Euphemia announces, crossing her arms like a spolied rich kid. Which she basically is. "You're terrorists and you're going to be arrested."

He gives Suzaku a look. _Please let me Geass her,_ he hopes the look says. _I want to make her shut up._

Suzaku shakes his head firmly. He turns back to Euphemia. "You wouldn't say this if you knew who he is," he says lowly. Lelouch's eye widens. This is a risk, a huge one...but, well, if it doesn't work he still has the Geass.

"I don't care who he is."

"No, Euphy, he's...he's Lelouch vi Britannia."

It takes a while for that to sink in. At first Euphemia looks unconvinced. Then her eyes widen, probably remembering stories of him from when she was younger. Stories of the family that was thrown out of the kingdom, maybe even memories of him as a five year old, if she had an exceptionally good memory...

"Lelouch vi Britannia," she repeats, in wonder. Euphy had never been one to hurt her family, no matter what they'd been accused of. This was maybe something they could count on.

He lets his smile widen, aware that it looks more insane than he would hope. "Yes," he says. "Your dear older brother."

* * *

 **Reviews would be nice!**


	2. Call and Response

**Sorry this took so long. Here's chapter two!**

 **To Sarah Smiles: Ha ha, thanks for your review! :) Unfortunately I don't think I'll include romance in this story. But I _do_ ship Lelouch and Suzaku, and that will probably show.**

* * *

"The video was posted about seven hours before the attack, sir," Kanon tells him. Schneizel watches the screen in mild interest. _Zero Requiem – Part I_. It was an interesting title, the _part I_ especially. This was a work in progress.

There were no fatalities from the terrorist attack yesterday. Everyone had, by some sort of luck, been evacuated before the attack.

"There's no way to trace the user who uploaded the video?"

"They've covered all their bases, sir."

"It's too early to assume that they're related to it," he says. "Did you finish questioning the man who caused the power cut?"

It was a strange thing. The man was a professional at dealing with electric wires - he'd done this job for twenty years. But he'd crashed his maintenance truck into the pole and caused the black out anyway. It wasn't too far fetched to say it was an accident, but Schneizel wanted to cover his bases nevertheless.

"Yes, sir, we did," Kanon said. "He doesn't appear to remember having done it at all."

That piqued his interest. "You're sure?"

"Absolutely."

Kanon's phone beeps. He glances at the text and his eyes widen. "There's another video." He turns Schneizel's laptop towards himself and types _Zero Requiem_ into the search box. The video pops up in a matter of seconds. It already has a thousand views.

"Good day! This is Zero again," one of the boys says.

"And I'm Lancelot!"

"I hope you enjoyed our little show yesterday. You'll be happy to know that there's more to come!"

"But you'll have to work a bit to find out where to look."

Zero moves closer to the camera, his black mask unnerving. "We'll take it easy for the first round," he says. "What would I get if I divide three - " here Lancelot holds up three fingers in the background "- and five?" Zero holds up five fingers himself. "Solve this before fourty eight hours, and you might stop the next bomb!" He reaches towards the camera, and the screen goes black.

They both blink, quite unsure of what to think.

* * *

Lelouch isn't talking to him. He responds if Suzaku asks him a direct question that absolutely deserves an answer, such as _what should I say in the video_ , but otherwise he pretends for all occassions that Suzaku doesn't exist. It sort of weirds him out to sit in class and not have his phone blink madly at him, but he's used to Lelouch's temper tantrums by now.

"Is he mad at you?" Euphemia whispers to him in the middle of a lecture. Suzaku jumps.

He still can't believe that Lelouch let her go. He was so sure that he would have pushed him out of the way and used his Geass anyway. Maybe he still cares for her, even after all these years. Suzaku can't deny that he's messed up really badly – it's a risk to her life to get her involved, and the Geass might have saved _her_ more than them – but some part of him is horrified at the thought of forcing her to relinquish her will.

Suzaku nods his head yes, too scared to turn and speak in the middle of class.

He'll have to take complete responsibility for this, he knows. Lelouch won't make this easy for him. He's lucky she was so easy to convince – once she realized who Lelouch was and that they didn't actually kill people, she promised to keep their secret. Of course that didn't make Lelouch feel at all better, and he was quick to kick her out of their apartment at the first opportunity. After which he ignored Suzaku and started working on his next bomb, pausing only to record a new video.

He's used to his temper tantrums, but that doesn't mean he likes them. Especially when things really are Suzaku's fault – the guilt tastes horrible on his tongue.

"Can I come over after school today?" Euphemia whispers again. She's perfected the skill of talking in class with the teacher never figuring it out.

The correct answer is no. Especially if he wants Lelouch to forgive him sooner. He hesitates a bit, then shakes his head no. He knows she'll be frowning, but they really can't afford to get her even more involved.

Who is he kidding. For all his talk about trying to keep her safe, the worst part is that Suzaku doesn't care about the risks. The part of him that was just so lonely all this time, desperate for something, anything, to give him more purpose...had met Euphy. And she was the light, the only brightness he'd seen since that gypsy summer years ago, and the selfish part of him wanted to hold onto it for as long as he could.

"...I know the way to your apartment anyway," Euphemia reminds him. "You really can't stop me from finding you."

* * *

He finds Lelouch on the roof during lunch break, just like he knew he would. He is sitting leaned against the wall, his phone open in his hands. But his eyes are closed and his head is resting on his chest, as if he fell asleep in the middle of whatever he was doing. It's hard to sneak up on him when he's sleeping but Suzaku manages, quietly sitting beside him and leaning over to see what he was looking at on his phone. He is unsurprised that there's a lock screen up already. Lelouch's phone lock has about ten different stages – even if Suzaku watched him unlock it in slow motion he wouldn't be able to recall all the passcodes ever.

Lelouch starts falling a bit to the side in his sleep, which jerks him awake in an instant. When he sees Suzaku next to him he frowns.

"How many views did we get?" Suzaku tries, like it even matters.

Lelouch shrugs, starting the complicated task of unlocking phone. It only takes him three seconds. He doesn't check views, though, instead going back to whatever he was doing – which was, it seems, reading about the former royal family of Britannia.

"Do you think the riddle was too hard?"

Again, no answer.

"Lelouch, I'm sorry."

Lelouch stops reading for a moment, the fingers that had been scrolling freezing. "I forgave you," he says. "You literally couldn't help yourself."

He sounds a bit lost, and Suzaku feels like he's missing something. Like he might not have understood Lelouch's anger after all.

Then he sees that he hasn't stopped scrolling because of his apology. His fingers are frozen over the name of Nunnally vi Britannia.

He waits patiently for Lelouch to snap out of it. Minutes pass. Suzaku can't even tell if he's thinking or not. Finally he nudges him, reaching over and prying the phone out of his grasp. Lelouch's fingers curl in its absence.

"I'm sorry," Suzaku says again. He isn't sure what he's apologizing for this time.

Lelouch shakes his head in dismissal. Suzaku waits for him to say something cutting, but he is oddly silent.

* * *

"Should we try to contact them?" Kallen wonders. They're all huddled around the lone laptop for the second time in two days. The video has ended, the replay button blinking on the screen.

Ohgi shakes his head. "We don't even know their motives yet," he says.

"Lancelot seems Japanese," Sugiyama says. Everyone nods in agreement. It's hard to make out clear identities behind the masks, but his accent is unmistakeable. "I'm not sure about Zero." Zero's English is flawless, but so is his Japanese. It's hard to place him. They both seem like typical high schoolers.

It's the riddle that seems…well, sort of lame. Five divided by three. What even.

As lame as it sounds, none of the black knights have come up with anything satisfactory.

"Pass code for a bank safe," Inoue tries. "Divide the two and you get zero point six. Maybe the code is zero, six, zero, zero, zero, so on."

"But code for _what_ safe? We can't bloody well check all the safes in the city."

"..."

"Location coordinates," Tamaki says.

"With five and three? Please."

"Er...math class?" he tries again. His eyes widen in realization. "That's it. They're teenagers, and they're going to blow up their school."

Kallen frowns. "I'd like to think they have bigger goals than that."

"Ehhh, it's what I would do."

"We're freedom fighters. That is _not_ what you would do."

"Some fight this is," Sugiyama says darkly.

There is a moment of horrible silence because everyone agrees.

Kallen takes the laptop from Ohgi's hands, typing _three by five_ into the internet search bar. The results are mostly a mess, but some things look promising.

"There's something called the three by five initiative," she says aloud. "Something about HIV treatment."

Sugiyama looks over her shoulder, interested. "Maybe he's targetting a medical facility?" He reads a bit. "But this is outdated," he says. "It was in 2005."

"Maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe the hint is just medical facility."

"That still leaves a lot to narrow it down by."

There is silence again, but this time not so dark.

* * *

Euphy appears at their door that evening, just like she had promised. Lelouch gives her a long, blank look before slamming the door in her face.

For a moment, she is too shocked to protest.

"Lelouch?" she hears Suzaku's muffled voice inside. "Who was at the door?"

"Delivery man," is Lelouch's reply.

Euphy knocks again, louder. "Suzaku, this isn't a delivery man!" she calls out.

There is the sound of a short scuffle. "You just _slammed the door in her face?"_

"She wasn't invited!"

"That's no excuse to – just a second, Euphy! - that's no excuse to slam a door in someone's face!"

"If you want to meet her, meet her somewhere else. This house is off limits."

There's a silence, and then Suzaku appears at the door, an apologetic smile on his face, though his eyebrow is twitching awkwardly. "I''m sorry about him," he says. "He's...well, he's just..."

Euphy smiles. "No problem." She steps inside. Lelouch glowers darkly at her from a corner. He isn't wearing his eyepatch. He's covered his eye with his hand while he fumbles around on his table for it.

She wonders what he's hiding.

"I just want to get to know you," she tells him. "Schneizel's told me so much about you, but I...well, I was too young to really remember."

Lelouch laughs shortly. _"Schneizel_ told you so much about me?" he shakes his head and leaves the room, fitting the eyepatch over his eye. Euphy starts to go after him but Suzaku shakes his head.

"It's going to take a while for him to get used to you," he says. "Give him time." He gestures for her to sit, then wanders to the refrigerator to find her something to drink. She takes the time to look around herself.

The apartment is...surprisingly neat, for two high school boys living together. While Lelouch's desk is piled with stuff, it all seems organized. The floor has been swept, tables dusted, the newspapers under the coffee table categorized according to month.

It's the contents of the refrigerator, which Suzaku is standing in front of like he's hoping it will magically conjure something to save him from his shame, that alarms her.

"Do you guys never cook?" she asks.

Suzaku shrugs awkwardly. "We usually buy out," he says. "I'm sorry, but there isn't anything to drink...can I offer you water?"

"Yes, yes, sure. But, you never eat cooked meals?" It's hard to wrap her mind around. She's reminded horribly of the difference in their living circumstances.

"Lelouch cooks really well," Suzaku says defensively. Has she offended him somehow? "He just doesn't always...well, remember to."

"And you? You don't cook?"

"I make a half decent sandwich."

"That isn't cooking, Suzaku."

"...but I use the stove to toast the bread."

She shakes her head in dismay. She'd have to do something about this.

* * *

"Did you consider the periodic table?" Lloyd asks Cecile, lazily. He is too tall for his chair – his limbs hang awkwardly off of it. He swivels it around as he stares at the ceiling.

They used to have more company than just each other, but Lloyd's eccentricity wasn't welcome on the police force. He'd messed up too many missions by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or by getting on the wrong person's nerves. He hadn't been suspended – they needed him too much for that – but he'd been given his own room and been told to keep away from other people's businesses if he could help it.

Cecile, his trusty assistant, was willing to be his partner, but he doesn't believe that. She probably only tagged along because she could hit him on the head as many times as she wanted and not get in trouble with their boss.

"No," Cecile says, from where she's typing furiously across the room. "Did you?"

"Boron," Lloyd says, thinking. "Atomic number five, valency three."

She pauses for a moment. "A boron based explosive?"

"Congratulations! Then again, we could be completely wrong." This doesn't bother him in the slightest. "But while that does put the five and the three together, I don't see why he said _divide?"_

"Nuclear fission?"

"Then why boron?"

"For the control rods."

Lloyd hums thoughtfully. "So the clue is the control rods of a nuclear reactor? That could be problematic."

It takes a while for the news to sink in and for panic to take over. In a moment Lloyd is up, dashing across the room for the phone. "This is bad, this is bad."

"Call Schneizel first!" Cecile calls, typing faster now. "Tell him this is an emergency."

Lloyd dials quickly.

" _Hello?"_ Schneizel's voice says from the other end of the line.

"I'm sorry, but we're all going to die," Lloyd says, completely serious.

* * *

Lelouch watches the news on his screen in distaste. The comments on his video had been bad enough – _pass code for a bank safe,_ honestly. The only half decent theory he's come across so far is related to the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. It is completely wrong, of course, but it is amusing in a way that doesn't make him want to die, unlike _pass code for a bank safe._

But now...he stares at the screen, where some policeman is making a statement about evacuating areas and a nuclear explosion.

This is pure blasphemy.

How did they get it so _wrong?_

He reaches for his phone. His number is guarded, so the police won't be able to trace him. He'll just have to call them up and tell them that they're a load of idiots and to calm the hell down.

He can smell something good wafting from downstairs, and hears pleasant laughter, and it doesn't help his killing urges in the slightest.

He dials Schneizel's number.

" _Hello?"_

"This is Zero," he says, emotionless. "Your answer is wrong."

Schneizel is instantly ten degrees colder. _"What do you mean?"_

"I mean that the nuclear reactor is _not_ going to explode. Do you really think we could manage that? A pair of teenagers?" They could, of course, but Schneizel didn't need to know that.

" _How do I know you aren't lying?"_

Lelouch sighs heavily. "You don't," he says, and hangs up.

He listens to the empty silence of his phone for a moment, wondering how to get rid of this mess. The real bomb is still out there, completely ignored, while everyone panics in the wrong direction.

Could he set it now? To distract them from evacuation?

Maybe post a video as well.

He texts Suzaku, even though they're in the same house.

 _I need you upstairs. Now._

* * *

 _ZERO REQUIEM – Failure of Part I,_ is the title of the newest video.

The two masked boys, Zero and Lancelot, appear on the screen.

"I'm disappointed," Zero says, sounding pretty pissed, "that you are all so, incredibly wrong. This was supposed to be an easy one."

Behind him, Lancelot shakes his head.

"The nuclear reactor is not going to blow up," Zero continues. "You have my word of honour. Something else _is,_ however, and it looks like you won't be stopping that."

Lancelot mimics an explosion with his hands.

Then the screen fades to black.

In the heart of Tokyo, the top floor of Infinity Corporations, owned by one Clovis la Britannia, explodes.

* * *

Schneizel puts on an expression of long suffering concern for his younger brother while he questions the doctors at the hospital.

In reality, he doesn't care one bit. He probably wouldn't have even cared about Cornelia, and she's his favourite sibling. Clovis is at the bottom of the list of Siblings He Cares For. Almost not on the list at all.

"How is he, doctor?" he asks in fake worry.

The doctor waves a hand at him. "He'll live," she says. "A couple of broken bones, some bruises, burned skin. He's much better off than the rest of the victims."

"Any casualties?" Schniezel asks.

"None, so far. There's a lady with an injured spine, and we're still hoping for the best there." She frowns angrily. "Nasty terrorists."

That is a mild term for it.

The doctor goes back in, and Schneizel returns to the waiting area. Lloyd and Cecile are there, looking rather apologetic. As apologetic as Lloyd can look, at least.

"The blame is on me," Schneizel says. "I'll speak to the Chief. Don't worry yourselves."

"It seems so obvious now," Lloyd says. He's clearly sulking.

"Obvious?" Schneizel hadn't given the riddle any thought. He'd been too concerned with the explosion and withdrawing the orders for evacuation. The whole situation was a mess, honestly.

"What would I get if I divide three and five," Lloyd recites dully. _"I._ He said I. He meant what would he get if _zero_ divided three and five."

Schneizel's eyes widen in realization. "Fifteen divided by zero. Infinity."

"Congratulations," Lloyd says, but there's none of his usual enthusiasm in it.

* * *

Suzaku is, for lack of a better term, furious. He's standing towering over Lelouch while Lelouch sits at his desk, looking pointedly in a different direction.

"You didn't tell me you were going to set the bomb off immediately."

Lelouch frowns, but doesn't meet his eyes. "You wouldn't have let me."

" _That is my freaking point."_

"They were evacuating, Suzaku," he argues. "They thought we'd set off a nuclear reactor. They were panicking."

And killing twenty people is somehow better?"

"They didn't die. No one did."

"That was luck, Lelouch. Pure luck. We were supposed to set it off at night when the building would be empty."

Lelouch raises his hands in defeat. "Well, what else could I have done?"

Suzaku's glare grows more intense. He grabs Lelouch by the collar and tugs him forward, so that he has no choice but to meet his eyes. He meets them defiantly.

"No fatalities. That's what you promised me," Suzaku says lowly, fiercely. "That's why I'm still here. If you mess up like this again, I'm gone, and you'll have to do this by yourself."

He drops his collar abruptly. Lelouch falls back in his chair.

Suzaku leaves, slamming the door shut behind him.

Lelouch hears his motorbike whirring to life as he speeds away.

* * *

 _The stench of the corpses was overwhelming. There was no place to hide from them, the entire city was trashed. Corpses leaked onto the streets and lay in pieces along the sidewalk._

 _Suzaku was behind him, not even breathing. They were trying to step around the bodies but there was no where to walk, no place to step that wasn't covered in blood and gore -_

" _Nunnally!" he kept shrieking, the only sound in the gloom. "Nunnally, Nunnally!"_

 _They each held a gun, two large for their bony ten year old hands. Lelouch's fingers shook over the trigger, but there was no one to fight. The enemy lines seemed to have retreated, leaving the entire city dead in it's wake."Nunnally!"_

 _And then he saw her, in the middle of the street, broken wheelchair and mangled body, her eyes wide open and screaming -_

* * *

Suzaku wakes up to a loud thud. He looks over his bedframe and finds his roommate on the ground, rubbing his head and blinking.

"Nightmare?" he asks unnecessarily.

"Yeah," Lelouch mutters. "I'm fine." He stands up, staggers a bit, and then makes his way out of the room.

Suzaku glances at the clock. 5 AM. He rolls out of bed as well.

* * *

 **I basically googled three by five and just made up all the theories from there. I guess it shows.**

 **And I get that dividing by zero should aaactually be undefined, and not infinity, but please spare me for the sake of the progress of plot. Undefined Corporations sounds pretty lame. Granted, it suits Clovis, but still.**

 **Review?**


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